Title: Goddess' Garden
Rating: K
Character: Aerith
Summary: There are rumors of a ghost going around Edge.
Notes: Post-Advent Children, for a request from my little sister. I love you, Sis.
this fic is dedicated to all of those who have ever dared to dream, to make things different, and to seek peace in all of this chaos, no matter what form that peace comes in. here's to hoping all of your dreams come true.
Some say there is a beautiful phantom that haunts the streets of the Midgar late at night, when the dim lights of Edge shine down upon the ruins and set the crumbled metal and glass ablaze with artificial firelight. The ghost, as the rumors and whispers of those brave enough to speak of it say, is a simple young woman, freshly bloomed into adulthood. Her hair is the dark brown of the planet, and her eyes are an emerald green of the forests – or so say those who have dared to venture close enough to catch a glimpse of such exquisite details upon her china-doll, white face. She is slender, and of moderate height; she is clothed in the simplest of dresses, pastel-pink like the flowers that grow in an ocean around where she resides. The cloth sweeps down to her feet, and a darker, rose pink jacket hugs close to her shoulders, and her wrists glitter with pure gold bands of sunlight, shimmering as she glides to and fro.
It is said, during the time of night when the moonlight is just right and everything glows in a silver ocean of beauty and grace and truth, that she can be found standing amidst the flower field around her. Her form is natural there, and a soothing, peaceful sense of security has been said to flow into those who see her sad, sad eyes and pleasant, warming smile. Those who have come close to her have even claimed to hear her laughter, trickling like a spring through a meadow, over the waves of flowers, and she smiles at them with the simplest of grins, and melts away into the flowerbed, back from whence she came.
It is rumored that that is why the flowers where she was found bloom with such vigor and beauty. The Goddess' flowers, some people call them; for what else could a being be that is as beautiful as the planet herself and can make life grow out of the impenetrable death that settle around the land?
As time passed, her legacy remained, even as she faded. The flower goddess stopped appearing in that shimmering field, when the moonlight makes things just right, but the flowers did not die. It was the faith of the people that kept the field living and thriving even after the phantom had long since vanished.
It began with old women and young children – people who were unable to participate in regular activities in society – and soon became a flood amongst all. Travelers would come from far and wide to marvel at the Goddess' Garden, as it had been named, and to help keep the land alive and fresh and beautiful.
Some believed that she was the planet itself, given form in the shape of a sad, bittersweet young woman with a simple little smile and forest-green eyes. Others simply said she was a young lover who had lost her soul mate to the Crisis years before, and longed for the return of her loved one. Stories blossomed and rumors grew, but only one thing remained certain – she was a Goddess, a bringer of life and curator of nature.
After time, her presence became renowned. Churches arose in her name – the Goddess' Gardens, as they were called, in remembrance to her first appearance – and the people grew to feel peace in the land. A religion was not needed, and preachers didn't exist; laws were unimportant when it came to the Planet. The people came as they were available, tended to the gardens and spoke with the Planet and with one another. They connected to the Planet through the name of the young woman who had come to represent grace and beauty and the creation of the new from the old.
What little hope the people had from before grew, and new lives sprouted from the ruins.
It is said that even today, so many years after all of the shrines have become just memories in the distance and the tales have become thin and dry, that every once in a while, when the moon is just right and the flower fields are alight with silver beauty and grace, the ghostly shape of a woman, smiling a bittersweet, simple grin, can be seen kneeling amongst the flowers, golden sunlight upon her wrists, keeping the legend alive.